Evolution

One day, while she was straining to drag her stone plough across dry, rocky ground, sheep came blundering over a bluff, bleating noisily. Always ready for a break, the workers in the field straightened up to watch. They laughed as the sheep stumbled over the broken ground, nudging each other nervously and nuzzling in search of grass.

But now there was a frenzied barking. A dog came tearing over the bluff, chased by a boy wielding a wooden staff. As the workers laughed, clapped and whistled, the boy and the dog began to chase the sheep, with comical incompetence.

Gwerei was at Juna’s side. She peered into her baffled face. Then, not unkindly, she pointed at the sheep. "Owis. Kludhi." She picked out the sheep with her finger, one by one. "Oynos. Dwo. Treyes. Owis." And she nudged Juna, trying to get her to respond.

Juna, her back aching, her hair matted, had had enough strangeness. "I’ll never understand."

But Gwerei, remarkably, stayed patient. "Owis. Kludhi. Owis."

And she began to speak to Juna, in her own tongue, but much more slowly and clearly than usual — and, to Juna’s shock, with one or two words of Juna’s language, presumably picked up from Cahl. She was trying to tell Juna something, something very important.

Juna subsided and listened. It took a long time. But gradually she pieced together what Gwerei was trying to tell her. Learn the language. Listen and learn. Because that is the only way you will ever get away from Cahl. Listen now.

Reluctantly she nodded. "Owis,"

she repeated. "Sheep. Owis. One, two, three—"

And so Juna learned her first words in the language of Gwerei and Cahl, these first farmers: her first words in the language that would one day be called proto-Indo-European.

As the days wore by, so her bump grew steadily. It began to hinder her work in the field, and her strength seemed drained. The other workers observed this, and some grumbled, though most of the women seemed to forgive Juna her slowing down.

But she worried. What would Cahl do when the child was born? Would he find her so attractive without a swollen belly? If he turned her out, she would be in as bad a position as if she had simply taken her chances on the high plain — worse, perhaps, after months of bad diet and backbreaking work, in a place she neither knew nor understood. The worry grew into a gnaw that consumed her mind, just as the growing child seemed to consume her body’s strength.

But then the stranger with the shining necklace came to the town.

It was evening. She was shambling back from the fields as usual, mud-covered and exhausted.

Cahl was making his way to the hut of the beer maker. Juna had glimpsed the great wooden vats inside the hut, where the beer maker churned domesticated grasses and other unidentifiable substances to make his crude wheat ale. The beer seemed to have little effect on Cahl’s people — not until they had consumed vast quantities of it — little, anyhow, compared to what it did to Acta and the others. No wonder it was such a useful trade good for Cahl: cheap for him, priceless to Acta.

But this evening Cahl had with him a man — tall, as tall as she was, if not quite as lofty as some of the men of Juna’s folk. His face was shaven clean, and his long black hair was tied in a knot at the back of his head. He looked young, surely not much older than she was. His eyes were clear, alert. And he wore extraordinary skins, skins that had been worked until they were soft, carefully stitched and decorated with dancing animal designs in red, blue, and black. She was frightened by the thought of the hours of work that had been invested in such garments.

But what most caught her eye was the necklace he wore around his neck. It was a simple chain of pierced shells. But in the central shell, below his chin, was fixed a lump of something that shone bright yellow, catching the light of the low sun.

Cahl was watching her. He let the young man go on ahead to the beer maker’s hut. In her own tongue he said to her silkily, "Like him, do you? Like the gold around his neck? Think you’d prefer his slim cock to mine? He’s called Keram. Much good that will do you. He’s from Cata Huuk. You don’t know where that is, do you? And you’ll never know." He grabbed her between the legs and squeezed. "Keep yourself warm for me." And he pushed her away and walked off.

She had barely noticed his latest assault. Keram. Cata Huuk. She repeated the strange names to herself, over and over.

For she thought that — just for a moment, just before he turned his back to walk to the beer maker’s — the young man had looked at her, and his eyes had widened in a kind of recognition.

It was three months before Keram traveled out from Cata Huuk to the town again.